Some RX 480 4G Crossfire stuff

Since everyone focuses on the 8G, i decided to drop some infos about my 480 RX 4G Crossfire setup. Reference, no oc.

http://imgur.com/a/Vpzvl

Also, have a gpu-z log from the 3Dmark run (inlcudes demo).
http://pastebin.com/eLvm0UTn

Overall, i'm pretty statisfied. On paper, it's slightly faster then the GTX 1070. I had to invest about 440 EUR. I've yet to see how it performs in the real world, but interestingly enough i did comparisons with a friend who crossfires the 8G and we had noticed no significant differences.

It seems to be the same performance for 100 EUR less. At least below 2160p.

 

People are focused on 8GB, especially on multi-GPU, becouse on linked-adapter mode (CFX) most of memory on both cards is occupied with the same data.
But yes, they scale pretty well (when CFX or explicit multi-gpu is supported).

 

Give us some real gaming benchies.

 

Might it be possible for you to disassemble one of your 4GB cards and check the label of the memory chips?
I have this post here in mind: http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-rx-480-4gb-video-cards-8gb-memory_183548

Edit:
If it's true that they used 8Gb memory chips on the 4GB models as well it should reveal:
K4G80325FB = 8Gb / 8000MHz



However, it's more likely they actually used 4Gb memory chips:
K4G41325FC = 4Gb / 7000MHz

Edit2:
It's true, check http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=5298752&postcount=33

 

you better take cover now...
and better not tell anyone that explicit multiadapter is going to pool those 2x4Gb into ~8GB... sooner than people will see a noticable a difference between 4GB and 8GB in the majority (!!!) of games.
of course 2x8GB will be 16GB...
welcome 5K gaming on the 8GB HBM cards...


PS: nice :beam:
if you come from a singleGPU setup and need help concerning specific xfire profiles / config in games where it should scale officially but doesnt at your side...just leave me a message.

 

Thanks for sharing , if you have this 2 games = 1- Need For Speed 2016 and 2- DiRT Rally can you test for me how does it scale in crossfire at 4k 60hz please ? Enjoy your new cards great set up right there.

 

I can't do actual benchmarks right now. Crossfire support seems to be all over the place. Except for 3DMark i can't get it to run reliable in most games. Might be a misconfiguration on my part.


@PCIEGate
I've heard of that. Sure, would be cool if i got a disabled 8GB line and somehow can get my hands on a proper bios. But right now i'm not sure if i keep the cards so i can't dissasemble them (see above). To be honest, i don't think there's any relevant difference between the 4g and 8g at 180p.

 

did you expect that before you did the purchase? and purchased anyway, well knowing it would be all over the place?
or did you blindly buy it?


(it's not true, cfx is mostly a matter of effort apart from the games where it's simply not supported. but the questions still would interest me.)

 

I was aware of the fact that Most games i regularly play would not benefit from crossfire. Though, i have to admit after they pushed RX 480 crossfire so hard, i hoped for a few more profiles on launch.

Also, i still think it might be a misconfiguration on my part or unintended 'amd zero core' behavior. Since somehow the crossfire benchmarks on tomshardware or hardwareluxx had to be made.

 

fine which 5 games do you mainly play?

 

Depends on my mood. Possibly Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Doom 2016, Dark Souls 3, heroes of the storm (pretty demanding, funny enough).

 

@artisticMink
8GB BIOS is available on techpowerup: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/?did=1002-67df--0b37
You probably won't take the risk (don't blame you), although it would be pretty interesting to see if this makes any difference.

 

fallout 4 - check
witcher 3 - check
doom 2016, wait for it, its announced with one of the next patches
dark souls 3 - check

heroes of the storm - i literally dont know, didnt install it ever, yet it's free.
on the other hand out of the games you mentioned probably the one who needs cfx the least. when i look at the screenshots

dont do that, before you are not 1000% sure that your card has physically 8 GB installed, and even then, DONT be the first to do such thing EVER.

those speculations about 4GB cards being modded down 8GB cards are also officially declared as false. in the ask-me-anything @ reddit. from release day.

 

Didn't work with any of the above mentioned so far. Second card turns on (Fan spins at ~5%) but no load. I suspect ULPS / amd zero core or whatever it is called nowdays. Though i've no idea how to disable it with the new drivers. Old registry keys are gone as well.

As for the "8GB unlock". I've disassembled cards before so i might take a look after i'm sure that i want to keep them. I'm aware about the loss of warantee. However, i certainly won't flash them. Don't see a reason for it. Edit: Yes, i strongly doubt it as well.


Edit#2
So, disabled ulps. Fan spins now, though stil no gpu load. Slight power consumption of ~12W. Little load spikes now and then. Weirdly enough, no readings on the memory sensors.

 

As an official AMD employee i would also claim this rumors as false
Anyway, i will get my 4GB tomorrow so i can check this rumors credibility.

 

which 3rd party tools are you using so far? for your earlier build or even now newly...?
anything like msi afterburner or similar (trixx)

if not, actually pretty good, because at the moment those are not needed to get CFX going. you can fine tune with those, but they are not neccessary to run a CFX effectively in first place. i dont know the new GUI possibilites of 480 OC/voltage section but we know they add parts of OC/voltage control functionality of 3rd party tools so we're fine there.

ULPS is disabled the easiest way with radeonmod:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=403389

basically its just a very simple-gui that accumulates all the registry keys that are important to do some tweaking that otherwise has to be done manually via regedit.
use this to disable ULPS as a first step.

 

As edited above, i already did. Though i'll give the tool a look, it'll sure come in handy.

Currently i'm only using crimson 16.6.2 - No luck yet in getting crossfire to run in anything else then 3dmark.

 

??? i mean. do you know what happens if this rumor is false and and AMD employee claims its right???

people bricking their cards is what would happen.

 

Why should he claim it's right? Even if those rumors are true (some 4GB cards are just re-branded 8GB cards), admitting so would just encourage people to get the cheaper cards instead.

-> https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4qfsji/rx_480_4gb_can_be_modded_to_8gb_via_bios_flash/d4so6zx

 

He's no AMD employee. If he is, he should have been fired just by the nickname selection.